Canine and Feline Models of Human Genetic Diseases and Their Contributions to Advancing Clinical Therapies


For many lethal or debilitating genetic disorders in patients there are no satisfactory therapies. Several barriers exist that hinder the developments of effective therapies including the limited availability of clinically relevant animal models that faithfully recapitulate human genetic disease. In 1974, the Referral Center for Animal Models of Human Genetic Disease (RCAM) was established by Dr. Donald F. Patterson and continued by Dr. Mark E. Haskins at the University of Pennsylvania with the mission to discover, understand, treat, and maintain breeding colonies of naturally occurring hereditary disorders in dogs and cats that are orthologous to those found in human patients. Although non-human primates, sheep, and pig models are also available within the medical community, naturally occurring diseases are rarely identified in non-human primates, and the vast behavioral, clinicopathological, physiological, and anatomical knowledge available regarding dogs and cats far surpasses what is available in ovine and porcine species. The canine and feline models that are maintained at RCAM are presented here with a focus on preclinical therapy data. Clinical studies that have been generated from preclinical work in these models are also presented.